


Home

by Desdimonda



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft - Various Authors
Genre: Argus in the sky, F/M, Feels, Gen, My first ever time creating a tag for a ship, Post 7.2, Post Tomb of Sargeras, The Draenei reacting to Argus, Wonderful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 00:48:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11680545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desdimonda/pseuds/Desdimonda
Summary: Divinius and Romuul adjust to life in the Exodar after Rakeesh's attack, and then suddenly, they feel a change in the air, and go outside, to look up.





	Home

Her fingers traced the scarred, ragged edge of a blade that had sunk into a pillar at the foot of the Vault, the fel taint of its bite almost cleansed since that day the  _Rakeeshi_ stepped upon the Exodar, led by an unmet pawn of Kil’jaeden, his wrath, unending. But he had been someone. He had been more than anyone, to their Prophet. His son. His only child, captured, twisted, moulded into….that, by the one he had once loved, near above all else.

Divinius pressed her finger, unarmoured, into the bared, crystalline surface, scratched raw by a demon’s blade. Whose? What did it matter. They were all here to do the same. Destroy; subjugate; consume. And what had been left of the Eredar had all ran - ran as far and as fast as they could, never wanting to look back. But they had to. Always. Leaving their memories, their lives behind once the Legion had caught them, again, again, and again.

_Draenei._

The word had held more familiarity to her than when she’d walked as an Eredar on Argus. She’d been young, then. She’d barely come of age, so free, so enthused, so eager to impress her superiors as she walked the streets of the crowning jewel of Argus, smiles, joyous laughter and kind words following in her steps as she found herself a student of Velen, his brilliant mind and gentle heart capturing her, making her believe she could  _be_  someone. Something.

And she was. She was The Prophet’s Hand; His Will; His Words when he could not speak and the hand to cast judgement, when he was not there. When he was, she was an extension of him, his power and faith in the Light, wielding it like she had been born of it.

> _“Do you ask to see your visions?” she had asked, her young voice curious as they had sat, crossed legged, at the peak of one of Mac’Aree’s hills, the crest of the morning light yawning across the lush grass, it’s blades swaying to, fro, with the lick of the breeze._
> 
> _Velen had smiled, kindly, his head shaking as he placed both hands atop her shoulders, hands adjusting her pose, making her sit straighter, poised, her elegant head held high._
> 
> _“I don’t need to. I see what I need to; everything, nothing, the Light helping me guide my heart with certainty,” he had said, watching his young apprentice reach out to the Naaru’s presence - their promise - tentatively, just as he had, once._
> 
> _“I want to know what I’ll be when I’m older,” she’d said, after a long, deep breath in, and out._
> 
> _Velen stared out beyond his city, his home, past her shoulders, dropped low in her relaxation, the twist of her white hair billowing gently._
> 
> _“In the end, the only one who can answer that, my child,” he said, holding her head steady, thumbs drawing beneath her eyes. “Is you.”_

Divinius sighed, drawing her thumb along the ragged edge of the pillar. The Exodar held many scars, it’s wounded husk becoming their home. Fitting. Scarred walls for scarred souls.

There weren’t many left from Argus who still lived. Some had died as they fled, wounded outside, and in. Some had fallen on their old homes, no longer more than a breath of dust in the cosmos in the Legion’s wake. Some on Draenor, beneath Kil’jaeden’s endless, unforgiving pursuit. But they lived on in family, in children; in friends and lovers; in the eyes that had seen the birth of a new beginning for their people, over and over. And now they were here, on Azeroth. Was this, at last, a place to call home?

_“Tell Romuul to begin repairs on the vessel. We are going home.”_

Divinius lowered her gaze as she turned, her fingers slipping off the pillar.

She guessed, not.

“How long have you been standing there, Romuul?” she asked, striding past him, her plated hooves clicking on the metal floor with each purposeful step.

“How long has it been since you have slept, Divinius?” he said, halting her with a gentle hand to her arm. The touch didn’t hold, it didn’t pull her back. It just, touched. It was just, enough.

She paused, glancing at the Artificer’s hand resting on her gleaming armour, the twinkling lights of the Vault trickling over them both like a swathe of stars, of a sky that wasn’t there.

Divinius said nothing for a while, because she simply had no answer. Time had escaped her. It could have been an hour ago - a day - or more, since she had last slept. Her exhaustion sagged every limb, it made her tail droop, the tip near dragging against the floor as she walked, it made the light in her eyes wane. But she knew if she closed her eyes, she’d never rest. Not until the Prophet had returned, with Jost and Virtos at his side. Their presence was more a support than protection, and he had insisted they stay with Divinius and her Chosen at Exodar while the Legionfall breached the Tomb, the Deceiver a reach away; Velen’s justice - her people’s retribution - no longer just the whisper of a dream.

Did she dare dream? Did she dare believe the beginning of an end - of a time when they could just _be_  - was here?

Velen saw all, she knew. All threads of possibilities; the paths that wouldn’t be, may be, that  _would_ , and those that could only be, if you did what was right.

What thread would unravel tonight? Would any? Would none, making the promise in their hearts shatter, again, like always. It barely hurt now, it was normal. There wasn’t anything that surprised Divinius anymore, in her long, endless years.

Touching Romuul’s hand, she let a slow, tired sigh pass her lips, the tip of her tail swishing in tandem.

Nearly, anything.

“When the Prophet walks upon The Exodar again; when our people feel the presence of his Light, then, I will sleep.” Her voice was steady and commanding, each word falling with ease and confidence. Like always.

Romuul took a step closer, his hand slipping down her arm. They met in height. The tips of Divinius’s horns giving her a gentle edge. She’d always kept them pristine, adorned in resplendent golden ornaments that matched her armour. They had grown thicker, more ridged, with her age, the tips curling outward, proudly. Romuul’s broad bulk shadowed her, but beneath her gaze, he felt humbled, smaller, as if he looked upon a burning, beacon of the Light’s justice itself. He supposed she was. The fire in her eyes so unlike any others, in his endless years; her smile, rare, but a grace; her presence, her power, a blessing to even know.

“It will be most undignified if I have to pick you up off the floor from exhaustion,” he said with a small smile, his hand trailing against hers. He wanted to linger. He wanted to hold.

But did she?

Divinius laughed gently, hooking Romuul’s little finger with hers.

She did.

“Well I did pick _you_ up off the floor after we repelled the Rakeeshi,” she said, the ripple of her warm laughter trickling through her words.

Romuul dipped his head, with an awkward smile. “I thought we weren’t going to mention that ever again.”

Divinius was just about to speak, her lips parted, when she felt the air, shift.

She felt the hair on her arms bristle; her heart paused as she listened - for what, she didn’t know. She didn’t understand, but she knew that she needed to. Slipping free her hand, Divinius turned, staring out over the Exodar from the top of the steps of the Vault, observing, waiting, for an answer to a question she hadn’t asked.

She took a step away, and another, Romuul silent at her side, for he had felt it too.

The world seemed to hold it’s breath - a yawn of anticipation - as all around her, stopped. No sound whispered past her ears, perked high beneath the curve of her horns. No-one moved, nor breathed nor blinked. Not even the tick of time seemed to pass by. She could have stood there for an hour or second, or a thousand more years, surviving, running.

It was a cry that pulled Divinius from her stupor. A distant, desperate sound that was neither sorrow nor joy. She took a step, and then another, hearing Romuul whisper something behind her as he fell into her step.

_Divinius!_

She looked to the side, hearing a flurry of steps descend from above.

_Gather the Chosen! Now!_

Divius drew her sword and shield, one by one, as she heard the words untangle around her, as the cries became  _something_. But what that something yet was, she did not know. It felt like chaos was unraveling like a ball of yarn, cast to the ground, inch by inch, never pushed, nor pulled. But still, the voices grew louder, more urgent. Adults, children. Confusion, panic. Words were indistinguishable, even though she listened carefully; even though she was so accustomed to chaos and keeping order. There was something so very different about this.

But something so familiar, that she almost couldn’t take the next step.

Heradus touched her arm, his long hair disheveled, pulled free from it’s high tail, and his sword and shield were no-where on his person. She would have chided him, asked why he stood with such dismissal at his post as ground patrol with the young recruits of the Light.

Something, had changed. Something, had disrupted the ebb and flow of balance, pulling at the hearts and soul of her people, and when she turned to look into Heradus’s eyes, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to know why.

“There’s something-” he paused, his words faltering as he glanced at Romuul who approached, his stern gaze, concerned.

“What is it? What is happening, Heradus?” he demanded, taking hold of the Vindicator’s arm with a firm hand, as if to shake him from a reverie.

He just looked up, and blinked.

“It is better that you see.”

Divinius needed no more, and tightening her grip on her sword and shield, she pushed past them both, her hooves clicking on the ground with purpose. Civilians, Vindicators, Arcanists, Anchorites - all of them walked, ran by her, past her, up and down. She saw tears, she heard cries, she heard words, but it was all noise.

She heard one word through it all. But it couldn’t be.

As she reached the top, she paused, staring outside, watching an old couple, embrace, the woman falling against a tree, basked in a light. A bright, eerie, odd light.

Why? It was night. Why did the sky spread wide, with a light, unknown, unexpected? Why did her people cry?

Divinius took a step, her hooves pressing upon the soft blades of grass, as at last, she looked up.

Her sword slipped from her hand, falling to the grass with a thud as she walked one, two, more, her head turned towards the sky, her face bathed in the eerie, ethereal light of Argus, it’s fel caress stretching like the wings of one they had left behind, one they had once loved, the name she would never speak again, except with  _Deceiver_.

Her shield, fell, the ornate plate pressing face down into the grass as she walked, three, four, more, the words of her people blurring to an odd harmony, to the melody of her memories. Memories that surged to a peak before her, playing out as if she walked there, again - as if she lived there, again. But they were just….memories. Images, thoughts, of a place that no longer existed.

Argus was before her, in the sky. But her home, was gone.

Divinius felt her legs shake. She reached out - for what? For who? She felt herself drop to her knees, but a strong arm caught her, easing her descent, and fell with her, their knees sinking into the cold, damp grass.

“You fall, I fall with you,” said Romuul as he clutched their hands to his chest and extended an arm around her back as he felt a small, silent sob.

“All my life, I have stood as protector, as a guiding light, as a beacon for our people when sometimes all we had left was to  _run_.” She squeezed his hand cursing under her breath as she stared back up at Argus, watching the twisted, whirling destruction at it’s side coil around, and around. “I know who I am; I know my path; I trust my life, my heart, my soul to the Prophet and the Light. Yet.” She paused, feeling his hand caress her back, gently. “I look to the sky and see all we have fled from, all that we used to be - all that we  _left behind_. And I - I remember who I was. I remember that girl. Young. Free. Prosperous. Excited at my future and what lay ahead for our people. I had to - I -”

Romuul lifted their hands, and kissed, the tips of her plated fingers brushing against his lips.

Divinius closed her eyes.

“I had to leave her behind and become Divinius, for our people.” She opened her eyes, briefly glancing at Romuul, before she stared back up at the sky. “I miss her still, sometimes. I wasn’t prepared to miss her today.”

There was silence, for a while, as they knelt on the grass together. Divinius slid off her knees, falling gently against Romuul’s side. She watched an old Anchorite sit beneath a tree, clutching a pendant. She saw a young, curious child ask question after question to her mother, who just cried. An Arcanist, tall, elegant and proud, simply stood, and stared.

Romuul spoke.

“I cannot pretend I understand, Divinius. I have always been, Romuul. I was an orphan. I was nothing, on Argus.” He felt her shift, he felt her look away, her wide, tired eyes turned to him. “I had nothing to leave behind nor lose, so I left.” Romuul smiled. “I was also afraid. But I became something for my people. I found a home, with them. It became less about a place, and more about them.”

She closed her eyes as she listened, feeling her body sag against his side.

“Our whole lives we spent running from Argus, and now, it is here,” she said, her words falling to no more than a whisper, elongated with her exhaustion. “Has it all meant nothing?”

Romuul glanced down, watching her head tilt gently against his shoulder, the scratch of her horns dragging against his armour, the wisp of her white hair falling, falling, down.

“It has meant everything,” he whispered, holding her close, as she fell asleep.

He gazed up at Argus, running his thumb across her fingers, idly.

It was time to go home, but he already was.


End file.
